An elderly lady making hot chocolate caused a small fire at an old people's home in Barnes early this morning.

The woman, in her early 80s, attempted to make the warm drink at Brookwood Lodge at about 3am.

Firefighters were called to reports of a small fire in Brookwood Road after the woman became distracted.

The lady’s kitchen suffered a lot of smoke damage but avoided any real fire damage.

An Richmond Housing Partnership (RHP) spokesman said: "The incident was caused by a small amount of milk overflowing onto the hob, which caused some smoke to trigger the alarm.

"All of RHP’s retirement housing schemes feature hard-wired alarms as well as smoke alarms, to ensure the safety of our customers and to stop small incidents like this from becoming any worse."

She sustained no injuries.